Twelve and Clara meet Jane Austen
by catherinetilney
Summary: She mentioned it once in an episode. What happened that Clara really met Jane Austen?


The Twelfth Doctor (and Clara) meet Jane Austen

"So," said the Doctor, the Scottish accent of this regeneration echoing around the TARDIS control room, "where to next?"

He looked over to Clara, still feeling the excitement of endless possibilities despite centuries of travel.

It didn't take her long to answer. "Jane Austen," she replied decisively.

That wasn't what he was expecting. "Pardon?" he queried. "All of time _and_ space—any past, any future, any planet and you want…" he trailed off letting his disappointment fill the control room.

"I want to know what happened to her," Clara defended. "I'm an _English teacher_, and Jane has always been a really big part of my life. I want to meet her anyway, but nobody knows exactly how she died so what an opportunity!"

The Doctor was annoyed. There were singing trees on Falusha Prime or they could be chasing down King Arthur in early England. But no. No, _Clara_ wanted Jane Austen. She was a brilliant writer, to be sure, but Regency England was so _boring_. And he'd already met her anyway—so what if it was eleven regenerations ago?

"Can't I just take you to the Jane Austen Centre in Bath?" he asked hopefully. "We can do an hour there one afternoon when we've done all the cool stuff."

"No!" Clara answered quickly. "It's crap there, and like I said _nobody knows how she died_. I want to meet her." She stomped her foot down and arched an eyebrow to indicate that this was not up for discussion.

The Doctor sighed. "Fine. Fine," he conceded. "Jane Austen's death it is." He moved somewhat reluctantly about the console. "Winchester 1816, if I'm not mistaken." He flicked a few switches.

"1817," Clara corrected.

"I knew that," the Doctor bluffed. "I was just testing you." He toggled a few more switches in a chagrined manner.

The TARDIS wheezed and groaned as it flitted through the time vortex, hurtling through Britain's history. They flew past William the Conqueror, Henry V, Henry VII, and William and Mary. Then they shot past Queen Victoria and the TARDIS had to double-back.

Eventually, they made it to Regency Winchester. The Doctor opened the door and popped his head out.

"Definitely Georgian Britain," he confirmed as a terrible stench filled his nostrils. He ducked back into the TARDIS and found Clara emerging from the wardrobe. Her clothes were a little off period—the waist was a little low and the skirt, a little too full, but it wasn't outrageous, nobody would take particular notice.

As the Doctor took in the sight of her, he laughed. "You're not related to Queen Victoria, are you?" he asked with a smirk.

"Not that I know of," Clara replied cautiously, fixing the last loose curl of her hair with a pin. "Why?"

"If you had blue eyes, there would be a distinct resemblance," the Doctor commented. With everything that Clara had done, all those versions of her running around in the universe, it was hard for him to be certain whether she could have been Queen Victoria or not.

The aforementioned royal doppelgänger was beginning to tap her foot impatiently. The Doctor held out an arm to her.

"Come, m'lady. Your author awaits."

Clara was practically skipping as they left the TARDIS and got out into Winchester.

"I'm so excited," she sang happily. "Do stop me if I get too fan-girl-y."

"I'll try," the Doctor joked.

They had landed in a small alleyway that led to a bustling street. Men and women jostled for a space on the pavement, and carriages raced past, bouncing over the cobbles.

The Doctor let Clara take the lead, sure that she knew far more about this than he'd ever cared to learn. She stopped him at a crossroads and decisively pulled him to the left. "Just down here," she told him. As they walked, he could hear her counting the house numbers under her breath. Finally, they reached their destination.

There were two women entering the house they sought. One of them was a middle-aged woman, whose face had been aged even further by emotional distress—she wasn't openly weeping or anything like then, but when you've been around as long as the Doctor has, you notice patterns of behaviour.

The second woman was significantly older. Clara laughed and remarked that the woman held a striking resemblance to a picture she had seen of the Doctor's third incarnation, especially from the side.

"She does not!" the Doctor cried indignantly. "My nose was never _that _big." He paused, considering the truthfulness of that statement. "Anyway, you'll find _I_ look much better in a bonnet."

The ladies went inside, and the Doctor and Clara decided to follow suit.

"We're here to see Miss Austen," Clara announced cheerily to the footman that opened the door when they rang.

"And you would be?" the man asked, giving them a suspicious once over.

"Yes, of course," the Doctor answered, digging through his pockets. "A brilliant question. You'll get far in life asking questions like that." He rambled inanely to give himself more time to find the psychic paper. "A question…aha! That we can easily answer." He flipped the paper open and held it out for the footman's inspection.

"Blimey," the man exclaimed as he read what he wanted to see. "That was quick! We only sent for a new doctor this morning. How did you get here so fast Dr Smith?"

"Hmm… yes." The Doctor paused, thinking up a Regency suitable excuse. "I have…very…sturdy horses," he said at last. "Because I am Dr John Smith and this is my glamourous nurse, Miss Clare Oswald. Would you be so kind as to let us in to examine the patient?"

"Of course, of course. Right this way." The footman held the door wider open and let them in. He led them up a flight of stairs to a bedroom, where, lying amid a grand pile of bed clothes, was Jane Austen.

Clara let out a squeak of delight which she then tried to unconvincingly cover with a cough.

The authoress looked up at them with tired eyes. She was suffering greatly.

"Good morning, Miss Austen," the Doctor started, flashing the psychic paper at her. "I'm your new doctor, Dr Smith."

Jane, despite her obvious pain, looked sceptical. "Either my eyes are worse than I realised," she commented quietly. "Or that paper was completely blank."

The Doctor's smug grin faltered briefly. He pulled a torch from his pocket and shone it in her eyes, regardless of the glaring anachronism of a torch in nineteenth-century Britain. If Jane suspected anything, she didn't voice it.

"Well," the Doctor announced, waving the torch back and forth, watching her eye movements. "My best guess would be nothing worse than cataracts." He moved away and started to examine objects in the room.

"Your best guess?" Miss Austen asked witheringly. "Are you not a professional? I should expect better than your _best guess_." She eyed the Doctor warily. "I'll have you know. I do not take well to charlatans."

"I'll say," Clara added from next to the vanity. "Your books take _no_ prisoners."

"My?...Oh." Jane's face fell and she folded her arms as huffily as her illness would allow. "You've been speaking with my brother Henry, haven't you? I kept my name off those books for a reason. Though, I must say, I've never had anyone impersonate a doctor in order to meet me before." She fixed the Doctor with a stern look.

He grinned back at her. "Oh no. I really am the Doctor," he explained. "And this is my assistant Clara."

He heard Clara scoff from across the room. "_Assistant_ indeed," she responded.

Jane laughed. "One often finds," she observed, "that it is the men who believe they are in charge, but it is really the _women_, who are so."

"Quite right," Clara seconded, giving the authoress a big wink.

"I _am_ in charge. Totally in charge," the Doctor rebutted. "So in charge that I know exactly what is wrong with you _and_ how to fix it." He paused dramatically, but the silence was a little too long for his comfort. "Aren't you going to ask me?"

Jane shook her head and turned to Clara. "The best thing to do with a man like this is not to answer him at all—it is too much for his pride to bear."

"Classic," Clara squealed with delight. "Just like Mr Darcy. You really are a genius."

Jane seemed to have forgotten her previous anger about them knowing her books and looked very proud of herself.

"Any way," the Doctor interrupted. "I diagnose that it is a simple case of arsenic poisoning. No doubt, caused by prolonged exposure through writer's ink and the medicine you take for the aching —that you didn't know about, but I do," he said triumphantly. "It's quite easy to cure. I have all the necessary remedies in the TARDIS. Back in a mo'."

"Tardis?" he heard Jane ask Clara as he dashed from the room.

The Doctor returned about ten minutes later, brandishing a few glass bottles. "I found it." He went to the vanity where Clara was and began to mix things together until the contents of one flask were a most violent shade of purple.

He handed the glass to Jane. "Take this," he instructed. "It will cure you right up."

Jane put the glass to her lips and swallowed the vibrant liquid.

"That should have eradicated the effects of the poison within the next hour," the Doctor asserted.

"I hope so," Jane replied. "Or, you will have to live with the knowledge that you killed—as your friend kindly put it—_one of the greatest authors in the history of the English language._"

Clara gave her a beaming smile. "He knows what he's talking about," she promised.

And so, they began to wait. Every now and then, the Doctor would check Jane's symptoms to see if they were improving.

About half an hour into their waiting, Jane's sister Cassandra joined them. The Doctor and Clara recognised her as the middle-aged woman they had seen entering earlier. She was very attentive to her sister. There was clearly a deep connection between the two of them. She turned to the Doctor for information about Jane's condition.

The Doctor, rather smugly, responding saying he was in fact, in the process of curing Jane.

But when the hour was up, the Doctor wasn't so confident. "That's impossible," he cried, examining Jane. "That should have worked. If it didn't work, that means I was wrong, and I am _never_ wrong!"

He paced the room, occasionally casting an accusatory glare at Jane, as if she had not gotten better of purpose. "It doesn't make sense," he repeated intermittently.

Clara, meanwhile, had been observing the objects in the room and called the Doctor to her side, with a hiss.

"Look at this." She handed him a manuscript.

"_Sanditon_?" he asked, vaguely recognising the name, though not interested enough to properly remember.

"Yes," Clara responded in hushed tones. "It was her last novel, but it was never finished. I read it once before, I know where it ends. This manuscript is much too long. And," she flipped to a certain part, "the rest of the story from there, is pretty different."

She pointed out a passage to the Doctor.

_All eyes in the ballroom had turned to the newly arrived General Wilton. The rumours of his twenty thousand a year had excited the entire village. But more than that, everyone was keen to see the mandibles that had been reported. They were of an outrageous blue hue and were something that certainly needed to be seen to be believed. _

_However, the truth of his physiognomy did nothing to discourage the shrewd Mrs Thornton from trying to match him with one of her daughters. Her youngest, Maria, was the best candidate as her appalling eyesight certainly worked in her favour. _

The Doctor finished the pages and looked at his companion, then to Jane. "Miss Austen?" Both women looked at him. "Miss Jane," he clarified. "Can you tell me about this new story of yours?"

"I wrote the first half quite a while ago, but I left it half-finished for some time. Then, about a year ago, I felt struck by inspiration and I finished it."

The Doctor regarded her intently, as jigsaw pieces presented themselves in his mind—he just had to put them together. He put on his sonic glasses and started a scan.

"This flash of inspiration," he asked as he scanned, "would that be round about the same time that you started feeling ill?"

Jane nodded. Cassandra looked nervous. The elder sister spoke up.

"She says it was inspiration, but, well, you've read it. We put it down to delusions brought on by the fever. You agree they are connected?"

"He's saying that it might have been the other way around," Jane told her sister.

"Yes," the Doctor replied. "I should have noticed it before. Stupid Doctor. It's the exact same symptoms, but instead of curing it, the medicine angered it."

"Anger it?" Jane asked. "What's making me ill is something that can feel anger?"

"Exactly," the Doctor answered. "She's a smart one," he remarked to Clara, who shook her head. Clara had told him once that whenever he complimented a human on their intelligence, his tone always sounded like a human talking to puppy that had brought back a stick. He tried to change his attitude.

"It's a Melheldan symbiont," he said plainly. "They're a nasty lot. They attempt to conquer races via parasitic invasion. Problem is, they still haven't learnt that some races, humans included, physically can't handle the symbiosis. In humans this results in symptom identical to arsenic poisoning."

"How do we get rid of it?" Cassandra asked impatiently.

Here, he had the decency to look sheepish. When he didn't answer, the women in front of him exchanged worried looks.

"But there's got be something you can do?" Clara demanded. He knew she was aware of the ill effects of meddling with fixed points in time, but she was probably asking for Jane to be less uncomfortable in the time she had left.

Jane laughed bitterly. "There is no use for your pride now, is there? You were so impressed with yourself that you were smart enough to know the problem. But it does you no good now when you can't offer a solution. You're just as clueless as the rest of us."

The Doctor looked at his feet. Every regeneration, he was renewed with a joy for living that often times ballooned out of control until something, or someone, laid him low and humbled him. This was one of those moments.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "We could try sending a sonic pulse through the symbiont, but depending on the level of connection, it could be fatal to the host as well." He sat next to Jane and put a hand atop her. "What I read in that manuscript indicates a high level of connection. I'm sorry."

Jane looked at him resolutely. "What should happen if we don't kill this creature?"

"I don't know," the Doctor replied. "Most likely, it will either crawl out of your ear and try to find a new host. Or, it will remain in control of your body like a puppet master pulling the strings." He made the motion with his hands.

"Tactful as ever, Doctor," Clara berated as Cassandra looked horrified.

"So, I suppose the prudent thing to do would be to kill the damn thing," Jane spoke up.

"Jane!" Cassandra admonished through her tears. "You're worse that Frank and Charles, whatever shall we do with you?"

"I don't suppose that will be an issue for much longer. We must kill this thing. I very much do not appreciate the idea of being controlled once I am longer in my body."

"It really would be Pride and Prejudice and Zombies," the Doctor heard Clara remark sadly under her breath.

He turned his attention back to Jane. "If you're sure about this," he began, taking her hand, "We'll send a sonic frequency through your body with these"—he tapped his sunglasses— "It will cause an unbearable amount of pressure for the symbiont and it will die almost instantly. Once it's dead, it's connection to you will be severed and the parts of your body that it controlled will start to die."

"How long will she have?" Cassandra's voice was choked with tears.

"Just over an hour," the Doctor offered. "It's a long process, but she—you," he addressed Jane, "won't be in any pain.

That's one consolation," Jane admitted. "Come, Doctor, do what you must." She settled herself against the pillows and face him bravely.

The Doctor went over to her and tapped his glasses. A high-pitched whine emitted from them as he moved the over Jane's body. The ladies all tried to cover their ears.

"Don't worry," he said. "It won't do us any harm."

"That doesn't mean it's not a horrible sound though," Clara pointed out.

"It's nearly over," the Doctor offered as consolation. He gave one final flourish and the noise ceased. "All done." Jane breathed a sigh of relief.

Cassandra turned to the Doctor and his companion.

"Thank you for helping her. I think. If you don't mind, I would like to spend my sister's final moments alone with her."

The Doctor nodded and led Clara towards the door.

"It was a pleasure to meet you, Miss Austen," the young woman told her as they left.

It then became a part of history that Jane Austen died in the early hours of 18th of July 1817.

The Doctor put an arm around Clara as they walked back to the TARDIS.

"So," he said gently. "They say never to meet your idols. Does that hold true?"

Clara beamed at him. "Not at all. She was wonderful—remarkable. I'm so glad I met her, thank you Doctor." She hugged him and then ran on ahead to the TARDIS. She gave him a cheeky grin as she entered the spaceship. "And I'll tell you what, she's an excellent kisser."

The End


End file.
